AGENESIS OF PALMARIS LONGUS IN SOUTHERN OF IRAN: A POPULATION BASED STUDY

Abstract

The Palmaris Longus (PL) muscle is a weak flexor muscle with wide prevalence of agenesis in world. This study was conducted to determine the prevalence of agenesis of PL in a southern population of Iran. A total of 732 subjects aged 7-86 years were selected randomly. The participants were primarily asked to do the standard test (Schaeffer’s test). Four tests were done for confirmation of the absence of the tendon in the subjects. The overall agenesis of muscle in both genders was 30.7±1.7%. This prevalence was more in females than in males (38.6 Vs. 22.7%, p<0.001). The bilateral agenesis was seen in 19.5% and left and right sided absences were 6.8% and 4.4%, respectively. There were significant differences between total and bilateral agenesis with age groups (P = 0.016 and P = 0.017). The agenesis of PL was higher than it reported in literature. The prevalence of bilateral absent was more common in present study adversely to the report in text that it was more on left side hand.